


Model Citizens

by r_lee



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 14:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caprica Six takes a look at the value of sisterhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Model Citizens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anythingbutblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutblue/gifts).



> Thanks to Aspen for the beta read.
> 
> * * *

Legend tells us that there is an old Earth-based rhyme. Whether it inspired our creators is something lost to time, but when I wake up after dying — once I remember what's happened and where I am and _why_ I am — it comes to mind. It's simplistic, childlike, but also filled with the touch of God, a sort of divine inspiration for all of His creations. It goes like this: _two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate?_

My fellow Cylons appreciate me, that much I know.

*

We are all liars. Deception is something my model is particularly accomplished at. This talent, combined with my new-found status as more than just another Six, is something all my brothers and sisters would be wise to remember. One deems himself beyond needing to learn from humanity. His arrogance is a shortcoming. Two is far too involved in the intricacies of fantasy to listen. His self-image as master manipulator is laughable, but for the sake of the Cylon race we let him see himself as he will. Three is on a quest for dominance. We are a democracy for a reason, but she forgets that when convenient. Four is designed to be medically inclined, with a scientist's innate dispassion and a scientist's curious cruelty. Five is built to serve and to be useful in other limited ways. His lack of intelligence is the flaw with his model. Seven is no longer. Eight is conflicted. Her heart gets in the way of her head sometimes, and she talks about love as if she knows its true meaning.

(I'm one to talk, aren't I, Gaius.)

If my brothers and sisters go through the same process of numbered model analysis, they might say that Six is never content to be one of many, and that her need for independent thought is her biggest flaw. They might be right. However, I have many virtues. I'm accomplished in hand-to-hand combat. I'm a computer expert. I know how to please others sexually. I have a vast store of knowledge. 

I have a name.

They call me Caprica, in honor of the planet I lived on for two years. They call me Caprica, hero of the Cylons. My brothers and sisters know that I was instrumental in making our near-complete demolition of the human race a reality. They _celebrate_ me. This is God's chosen path for me. My belief never falters.

(We Sixes are the most accomplished liars of us all.)

*

Ultimately, Eight was unable to carry out her mission. Yes, she shot Commander Adama, but she failed to kill him. She thinks she's human, Three says. She refuses to accept her true nature as a Cylon, Three says. She refuses to give up the Sharon Valerii identity. She considers herself to be Boomer. Go talk to her, Caprica, pleads Three. Save the Cylon race one more time.

_Hush, little sister, don't say a word, Six is gonna buy you..._

*

We sit together in the coffee shop, now that the awkward first moments have passed. I thought Gaius was a side-effect of this latest resurrection, something unexpected, some failure in the wiring or maybe some need that was so deeply-seated even I couldn't see it. He's helpful, of course, in his endearingly snide way — oh, those sarcastic moments of his, I could have just _killed_ him for them so many times, but I needed him to stay alive — and maybe these words of his really are just a part of me, something springing up from an internal well of experience and emotion. But he knows — I know — the right things to say, and eventually it's not God that binds Sharon to me but love. It has to be: Eight's heart _always_ gets in the way of her head. We all love our brothers and sisters, but love for a human is something different, something unique, something most of us don't know and can't possibly know. 

When I lived on Caprica I used to think _we are those people you see every day, the ones on the street corners, the ones in the stores, the ones passing by, the ones you barely seem to notice but who make up the background of your everyday life. We are here, humans, we live among you, and you're all too haughty to figure it out._ Even a genius like Gaius couldn't figure it out, and it was right there under his nose. In his bed. (You loved me, didn't you, Gaius? And I....) But yes, it's love for humans that brings me and Sharon to an understanding. It's what breaks through and helps her start to listen. Once the shock of knowing that Gaius not only survived but has prospered sinks in — once that feeling of numbness starts to fade — I ask her for seemingly simple information: tell me about your man. Tell me about the one you loved.

The first clue to how much Sharon loved her human — Chief, she calls him, but confides that his real name is Galen — is in the smile on her face every time she starts to talk about him. _This is love. These people love me. I love them. I didn't pretend to feel something so I could screw people over._ That last line was intended to hurt me, but I'll analyze it later because right now I'm on assignment and I'm good at those. Nothing can convince a Six that love is true if it isn't, and there's a reverence to Sharon's voice when she speaks about Chief. She tells me stories: the quality of his laughter, the warmth of his hands, the thrill of the moments they stole even after being ordered to end their relationship. How can someone be ordered not to love?

With everything she says, the Gaius by my side nods his appreciation and understanding. When Sharon fights tears with her smile to tell me that Chief was and is everything to her, Gaius smirks. "You see? Solid evidence of the power of real love."

I loved a human man too. (Why can no one else see or hear you, Gaius? Are you a messenger from God, or am I delusional?) His only answers are in the way his brows rise together, the disbelief in his snicker.

When Sharon asks me to tell her about my love, Gaius looks at me expectantly. His look feels like a dare or a challenge. I tell her I saved his life, that's how much I loved him. It would have been so easy to do what One — arrogance is his shortcoming — suggested and poison my body. My death would have been so much cleaner and so much quicker and so much neater, but at least it was my choice to die the way I did, shielding Gaius from the blast. If I had knowingly let him die, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself.

"That's it exactly." Sharon studies me hard. When we first met today, she told me I was a liar and she was right. My model excels at deception (shut up, Gaius). But I find when I talk about him, I'm not lying for her benefit, not for his benefit, not for anyone's benefit. This is me, Caprica, laid plain and bare. I used to watch human women with their girlfriends, gossiping and laughing and tittering about this or that. It filled me with a combination of dismay and longing, but at the same time I knew that was not God's plan for me. There's a growing camaraderie with Sharon, though, one that feels all too human (shut _up,_ Gaius), and I watch her earlier reservations about me melt away.

We were both Cylons on a mission. To my benefit, I knew what I was. To her dismay, Sharon did not. "I'm glad I always knew," I tell her. "It made it easier to stay on track."

Sharon shakes her head. "I'm glad I didn't know. If I had, things would have been so different."

I can't imagine not knowing and Sharon can't imagine having known. I confide in her and tell her I would never have been able to carry out her mission. Her voice lowers and she says she never could have carried out mine. There's some small distaste written on her face when she talks about Gaius, but I can overlook that right now. More than anything, I want to keep her from getting boxed. I want her friendship. I want her love. She tells me of a moment with Chief, of the way they used to pretend to be arguing so they could storm off and be alone together, and it makes me laugh.

"There's a new technique for your arsenal." Gaius smokes, sarcastic and characteristically unconcerned. I ignore him. 

A Five approaches. It was another Five who said he was inspired by me. Having an identity and being recognizable is disconcerting, but in time I'll get used to it. He sets the coffees down on our table with a quick efficient smile: Fives were born to serve. 

Sharon, now my confidante, shakes her head. "Gaius Baltar."

"Not your type?" I have to ask. Gaius rolls his eyes.

She giggles. "Um... no." I can't help but notice the way she glances around the room before she speaks. She's the only Eight I know who does that. Maybe it's all that time with the humans. "Gaius being alive. Why do you think they kept it from you?"

"Is the wrong question," Gaius insists immediately.

Fortunately, I'm quick on the uptake. "The right question is why did she get me to work with you, knowing that you'd tell me the truth?" I know the answer even as I ask: Three is on a quest for dominance. I look Sharon — Eight — my sister — in the eye and lower my voice another notch. "She knew I had feelings for Gaius, knew that I had trouble letting go of him."

Sharon speaks quickly and quietly, like we only have so much time. That must be something else she had to do a lot on Galactica. "She must've known it would trigger those feelings and those memories." A shadow of disgust flickers across her face. "She's frakking with you. Can't you see that?"

Three? The one who so lovingly brought me back in the resurrection tank? There's a piece of the puzzle missing here. "But why?"

Gaius is quick to chime in. "Oh, it's so perfectly obvious. You know, for a self-aware cybernetic life form, sometimes you can be _unbearably_ obtuse."

( _Shut up,_ Gaius.) "Oh, for God's sake—"

I see. I see it, and Sharon sees it, and that's the exact instant our sisterhood is really forged. It happens in the same moment Gaius warns me to be careful, the same moment Three joins us at the table. She's more than frakking with us. We threaten her quest for dominance, because we're heroes of the Cylons and she's nobody, and her biggest flaw is that she's desperate to be _somebody._ I see it with such clarity.

"Everything okay?" The smile on her face is as false as the rest of her. 

I look to Gaius. I look to Sharon. We are truly sisters now, bonded by love both for humans and for each other. We are someone. We're more than a Six and an Eight: we're Caprica and Boomer, her preferred human nickname, and Three is just another Three, the same as always. Boomer and I are the power.

When I turn to Three, it's with a complicit smile on my face, one that Gaius should recognize only too well. To his credit, he stays quiet. If my brothers and sisters should remember one thing about me, it's that my model is the best suited of all to deception. They think they know me, but they don't. None of them do. 

"Fine." I smile again. Boomer smiles. Three smiles. 

We are all liars. Only one question remains to be asked right now: which one of us is lying the most?


End file.
